The National Security Agency is having a very bad day: two of the most ardent surveillance hawks have officially turned against the spying agency. California Senator Dianne Feinstein broke ranks and came out against the NSA spying on foreign leaders. Even worse, the author of the Patriot Act, Jim Sensenbrenner, dropped a co-authored bill to end bulk collection of Internet and telephone data.

“We’re really screwed now,” one NSA official told Foreign Policy’s The Cable. “You know things are bad when the few friends you’ve got disappear without a trace in the dead of night and leave no forwarding address.”

Okay, but is there a point at which your country’s own citizens get some love, too?

http://www.ContraControl.com/ Zenc

I’m flabbergasted by the stupidity displayed by Feinstein.

Foreign Governments are EXACTLY who the NSA should be targeting. Even if they are our “allies” this week.

The (or Every) average American citizen is NOT who should be targeted, yet she apparently has no problem with that.

Liam_McGonagle

That is a delightfully quaint definition of “constituency” you’ve dusted off there, old boy.

http://www.ContraControl.com/ Zenc

I grudgingly admit to being tragically unhip.

Liam_McGonagle

On the other hand, I hear her p*ssy lips be so stretchy that she trip on them gettin’ out of the bed in the morning.

jnana

“We’re really screwed now,” one NSA official told Foreign Policy’s The Cable. “You know things are bad when the few friends you’ve got disappear without a trace in the dead of night and leave no forwarding address.”

this quote right here makes me think this is just more psyops. but, of course it is. i’m not sure there’s any political story in the mainstream or alternative media that isn’t. hook, line and stinker

over2soon

So… assuming this NSA info keeps leaking (despite government efforts), about how long do you think it will take for the world to collectively disavow the US for abuse of power?

As a side note, this next presidential election’s going to be an exciting one. Collapsing Tea Party, Congress under public distrust, presidential candidates either preaching reform or trying to sidetrack us with some new major issue… This gonna be good.

DeepCough

Vote Jesse Ventura.

Virtually Yours

I have a lot of respect for Ventura, don’t get me wrong. But I would much rather live in a world where we eliminate this silly notion of voting for candidates and institute the ancient tradition of Sortition: choosing our public officials by lottery. Remove Ego and ulterior motives from the equation. Also, can you imagine what the world would be like with no political ad campaigns? And just think about all of that campaign money which could and should be funneled into programs that actually help people. Sigh…

DeepCough

I appreciate your optimism and everything, but haven’t you noticed that the general election has become one big lottery in that a lot of people each have a ticket they can play to win what they want (which is a public official who will promote favorable policies), but all of these tickets are purposely losers, because not everyone can win. The ones who will
enjoy victory are going to be those who cheat the lottery by tampering with tickets or nullifying them, or paying off the people who are supposed to regulate the whole system. I appreciate your optimism toward a better solution, it’s just I can’t see much of a difference now.

Virtually Yours

“a lot of people each have a ticket they can play to win what they want” The problem is that we are currently limited to purchasing either a red or blue ticket, despite the fact that there is virtually no difference between the two. We need to be able to purchase a purple ticket, a true gap-crossing alternative which speaks to the shared interests of those on either side. Ideally, we should be able to choose a ticket from the whole spectrum (orange, green, pink, etc.) but for the sake of this particular conversation, let’s just stick to purple

During the most recent presidential election, OWS tried hosting events throughout the country called Occupy the Debates, which was an attempt to raise awareness about a host of issues/topics which would not be covered during the debates because both of the candidates were in complete agreement on them. You could have formed a purple party around those issues alone…

More recently, two individuals from polar-ends of the political spectrum (Tea Party and MoveOn) came together to form Living Room Conversations, in an attempt to begin a national dialouge that focuses on issues/topics that are directly related to shared values and interests (of which there are plenty) by members of both sides of the arbitrary red-blue divide. Again, why not use a model similar to this in order to form a third party? Instead of running a candidate, a vote for this party would be a vote for these shared values/interests, and public officials (whose only job would be to oversee/ensure the successful implementation of these shared goals) could then be chosen by Sortition, thus eliminating any fear/concern of personal bias.

In order for this to be a complete success, I imagine you would also have to eliminate the Electoral College so that every vote counts, and then implement Compulsory Voting, so that everyone has to vote (even if they only choose to abstain). Everyone has to have the ability to participate in this system equally, or else it is not worth the bother.

DeepCough

I think the most important first step is to eliminate the completely false dichotomy of “liberal vs. conservative” and “Democrat vs. Republican,” since the distinctions between these two concepts are as exaggerated as they are poorly defined. A realistic third party would have to be a complete tangent or deviation of this (pseudo-)two-party system. I couldn’t dream of an amalgam of Democrat and Republican being a purple party (especially when purple is the historical signatory color of a monarch). That is why I am more than happy to throw my vote away to Jesse Ventura, because he says–not in exact terms–“Fuck the system,” which is the sort of change the system needs. Sure, it’s a joke presidential run (I don’t care for Howard Stern that much), but to continue to go back and forth is no way to make progress.

“the distinctions between these two concepts are as exaggerated as they are poorly defined” Exactly, and that is why I think groups like LRC are so important, because they are removing these ill-defined labels and focusing on the shared interests of individuals who are disillusioned and fed-up with the status quo…

It starts with a conversation, and then manifests as action. And this is where Occupy faltered and ultimately failed: they were great at generating conversations but nothing much came of it because they were unwilling to mobilize and turn that momentum into action.

He’s running with Stern…really?? Uggg! I would never throw my vote away on that pig, and it lessens my opinion of Ventura considerably to know that – of all the highly credible and qualified people he could have asked – he chose that insufferably sexist ass. I am familiar with Vermin. He has a cute shtick but that’s all it is. He isn’t raising awareness about any viable alternatives and for that reason I feel he is just wasting everyone’s time (including his own) with a cute yet meaningless distraction.

Also, I chose purple because it represents a combination of red and blue, and it would be great to reclaim that color “for the people” and strip it of its former associations